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Prince Harry and Meghan Markle fueled speculation Wednesday that they may be about to relaunch themselves with a renewed high profile after they released a video of themselves congratulating the winners of a youth technology award they helped fund.
The couple, who have shunned the limelight in recent months, were filmed, apparently in the garden of their Montecito home, making congratulatory phone calls to the winners of the Responsible Technology Youth Power Fund grants.
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The couple are founding donors of the prize, which sees 26 youth-led initiatives receiving a total of $2 million in grants ranging from $25,000 and $200,000.
At one stage, Harry thanked the winners, who are engaged in a range of projects covering everything from increasing technology equity to combating cyberbullying, saying, “Thank you for everything that you do. Our kids, especially are incredibly grateful.” Meghan added, “They don’t know it yet, but they will.”
The high-profile video release comes after a period in which the Sussexes have kept an unusually low public presence and is their first official joint engagement in several months. The couple have seemed to be increasingly focused on undertaking separate causes and engagements, with Meghan notably not by Harry’s side as he promoted his memoir, Spare, which was published amid great controversy at the beginning of this year.
Meghan is understood to be keen to relaunch her career and has reportedly signed with the Hollywood talent manager Ari Emanuel, one of the most powerful figures in Hollywood.
Sam Hiner, executive director of the Young People’s Alliance Education Fund, was among those to receive a phone call from the couple.
He told People magazine, “What I appreciated is that sometimes it feels like we’re not as recognized for the advocacy we do as young people.
“I really appreciated that they saw the importance of the work that we were doing and were speaking to the importance of young people getting engaged in the democratic process.”
Trisha Prabhu, from the organization Rethink Citizens, described her work fighting cyberbullying to the couple, saying, “My vision was, can we actually stop the cyberbullying at the source with the cyberbully via a behavioral approach that actually teaches young people to pause and rethink.”
Harry replied, “This is amazing. This is exactly why we do what we do. This is exactly why the Youth Power Fund was created.”
